Pro tips

Pro tips

Hi all. I saw this at the america section and realized we didn't have this one yet even though the other one has been around for years. Maybe we do have it already but got lost, in which case this one can be removed.

The 'pro tips' were just a bunch of tips. Most of them for new players but even I found some tricks that I did not thought of.

So when you know something about a champ or general and you'd like to share, this is the place to be.

My first one is: learn to last hit minions, unless you play support. It may not look like much, but getting a good amount of minion kills is a great way to be usefull lategame. Even when you're a mage. It might be a good idea, just to get some addition ad from masteries/items, just so you can last hit better. You sacrifice some early game stats, but it makes you a lot more usefull lategame.

#2 there is an ignore button for a reason. While it's very important to communicate, there might be someone in your team who's really annoying. Flaming may be resulting in bad gameplay and that's worse than commication. Just press tab and select the ignore button but be nice and keep saying miss etc. also keep in mind you have check the minimap more because you won't see misses.

Now some actual gameplay tips:
#1 when you're being chased by a group of enemies and you are most likely going to die, tower dive. When not been hit by an enemy champ for 10 sec, the enemy won't get your kill but the turret does.

2# when you're being chased by a group of enemies and you are most likely going to die, but you're close to nashor, it can be a good idea, to hit baron right before you die. Once you die, baron will attack the enemies. This may not result in a kill for you, or kill them at all, but will most likely slow them down (pushing etc) or can result in team kills.

#3: use blue pill to mindgame your opponents. This will only work in non-30 normal games (or at 30 when you're lucky). For instance, act like you're afk. (you can achieve the same thing by standing still for some time. You can make morgana waste her stun by doing so) After a while, start recalling at weird places. This may bait opponents. Another way of using recall: recall when standing next to a bush. Recall, but right before actual teleporting, run into that bush. It seems like you recalled. Again, only at low summoner levels.

4# Don't be afraid to try new builds. There are very few absolute no-go builds (like ap tryn) but ad malphite can be worth checking out. I myself have tried every champ ad. Although most of them are terrible, you might stumble upon something very interesting you hadn't thought of before. Do keep in mind, this may not be a good idea in normal games. Thats what bots are for!

5# learn the base stats of each champion. This may seem like an awefull amount of work, but it can be very usefull. You can guess what summoner level the enemy has, which runes and masteries. It's no rocket science, but at least you know what to expect. Which one hits hard etc

6# warding. Warding seems stupid when you first play the game. Why the hell would you pay 75 or 125 gold, just to see a little bit more? The more experienced you get and the more skilled everyone gets, the more you learn the value of warding. However, it's not a bad idea to learn how to ward early. Find some guides how to do so. Warding can be used for all sorts of things, including escape moves (kat's shunpo for instance)

7# Just use your head while playing. Sometimes you can see you're going to be ganked, simply because enemies behave differently.

8# Call misses. Yes I know, everyone knows about this. Yet, it happens far too often people forget about it. Do not tell this person who just got ganked, he needs to watch the minimap better. This also means you have to call miss when you just went back to shop. Keep an eye out at all time!

9# Whenever you play a champ that can lay mines/traps (caitlyn, teemo, nidalee etc) do not just drop them at every spot that seems interesting if you want enemies to get hit by it. Just walk around the map, press h (hold... or whatever button you have chosen) and place a trap at this very spot. Enemies will get hit by those mines, simply because its in the middle of the auto-walked paths. Not sure people understood what i just tried to say xD

10# In the champion selection screen, select champions that make a good team. This may seem obvious but quite often teams lose, simply because their team is too much attack damage based etc. Here some golden rules.
1)
-Get an ad carry. Some ad-isch champ that can actually carry the game. Not every ad champ can do so. This ad carry goes bot, together with the support. (example: ashe)
-Get a support champ. A support champ has to make sure the carry stays alive (early phase) and get's minion kills. This means support should not attack mions at all. This is not a good idea for low level games (summoner level). 30 only. (example: soraka)
-Get a jungler. It doesn't really matter who, as long this champ can actually jungle. At this moment pretty much everyone can, still, I wouldn't recommend ashe. Also very important: gank. It may be a good idea to pick a champ, not because he can jungle so well, but because of his ability to gank. (examples of good gankers are nocturne/shaco)
-Get a tank: The tank usually goes top and has a solo lane. (example: mundo)
-Get a mage. The mage usually goes mid. (example: ahri)

3) Stealth. 8 champs have stealth abilities. I'll arrange them in order. Those who are most reliant first.

Evelynn - Twitch - Akali (she may not need it as much talon does, but the problem is: everyone knows when you're stealthed, simply because of cloud) - Talon - Shaco - Teemo - Vayne - Wukong. You don't have to agree with me on this one, it's just my idea of how stealth-based they are.

Now, my point is: you don't want too many stealth based champs. Let's just give each champ a number. Evelynn is most stealth based so gets 8 points. Twitch 7, akali 6 etc.
Make sure, you don't get past 8. Thats just bad. All the enemy needs is one little oracle (or ward for that matter) and your team die like flies. 7 - 8 is danger zone. This means picking evelynn or twitch can be dangerous. (one of the main reasons they're not doing so well in ranked games) Anything above this number is just... well... plain bad. Twitch and eve in one team is a no-go. Teemo and wukong together are fine.

4) Whenever you do ranked, or draft pick, try to counter. Keep in mind that lee sin is a good stealth counter and vayne is great at countering both tank and ad melee champs. Teemo is pretty decent against ad melee as well. Use those picks to your advantage.

Well, that's it for today, I do know a lot more but i'm tired of writing it all down. I hope you all found it usefull and will ad tips as well. Hope to see you all on the summoner's rift... blabla... etc

For warwick: don't start with ulti even though you can teleport with it unless you have many teammates that can kill him. First hit a couple of times with autohit. When you got some damage, use q. Then when you have some serous damage, use ulti. the lifesteal gives you lots of hp. Then q again and hunt in down with that blood lust thing.

Whenever you try to escape or gank, you can increase the range of an ability that teleports you (like kass' ult, or flash) by targetting a wall at maximum range. You probably know you can go through walls by using flash, but you can also achieve the same thing by targetting the wall itself. You can't get stuck so you will just go through it. This means, you can target a wall at max range of an ability.

However, you have to target the middle of it, not the edge of where you're standing. Hope I made myself clear... English isn't my native language.

Another tip for semi-new players: towers will target you if you damage a champ nearby. However, abilties that deal no damage (such as fiddles fear, or the summoner spell exhaust) can be cast without getting targetted. Rammus can also taunt enemies right under the tower, and pull them back to your teammates. Just keep in mind you dont autohit the champ when taunting and dont use w ability

The ad carry at bot should nearly always be ranged, or you'll get outlaned pretty easy by the current meta.
There are odd counterpicks that can work, but just getting a ranged ad carry is the safest way to go.

Also, rammus, is a bad example of a top champion, he exels at jungling and ganks.
Irelia or gangplank would be a better example.

As for jungling, pick a jungler with a stun or slow or anything alike, unless you are sure you can get some kills in. Some champions are very resistant to ganks, or have so much sustain or escapes, it requires a lot of effort to get him.

While on the subject of stealth, don't forget the stealth provided by bushes! It can be used to juke opponents very effectively. Same trick can be used by using the vision loss of opponents when you turn around a wall for example. Just running straight in and making a U-turn might throw off your opponent if he is just blindly clicking ahead of you to catch up.
Bushes also make is possible to juke cc ults or just snares. Just run into the bush, and stop for a moment if you feel like dat morgana or mumu is gonna try a snare/bandage toss. This will likely make them miss.
Most recent example I have of this is while playing singed and being ganked by Janna, Kennen and GP. As I ran into top bush (from their tower), I stalled and juked backwards, causing GP and Kennen to waste their ults as they directly headed for the end of the bush. I just waited in the bush, laid down my toxic slow, and popped ult to run back to river.
Basically : USE BUSHES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! (can make huge differences)

@ireella: you're right. It was late at night and I was tired. I've changed it =)

@hardtofindaname/neantro: thank you for your additions.

Now i've got another myself:

Like hardtofindaname said, use bushes to your advantage. When being chased, it's a good idea to run into to the bush. This will make you invisible for some time (untill the enemy is also standing in the same bush) but, instead of running in the same direction all the time, it's a good idea to change. So you enter a bush from the left, but instead of running to the right, you just wait untill the enemy runs into that bush and you run out to the left. The enemy will expect you to run to the right so this can buy you some time.

Also, part of the games are skillshot. Whenever you are being chased down by someone with a skillshot (Lee Sins Q, ez Q etc) its a good idea to not run in a straight line. Just keep moving to the left and right (or up and down) so they will mess up their skillshots. You will move slower so its not always a good idea when more enemies are coming, however, you dont want to get hit by lee sins Q.

Just for the record, all the "pro tips" in this thread so far are very very basic things that really anyone should know. Anyway, it's well written and there are still players at level 30 who don't know these things.

Quote:

Whenever you try to escape or gank, you can increase the range of an ability that teleports you (like kass' ult, or flash) by targetting a wall at maximum range. You probably know you can go through walls by using flash, but you can also achieve the same thing by targetting the wall itself. You can't get stuck so you will just go through it. This means, you can target a wall at max range of an ability.

This will only work on the very thin walls. For the thicker walls (especially if you are using smart casting), if you do this you will just run smack into the wall and look like a total prat. What you need to do is target over the other side of the wall in order to get over. For example, if you are playing Gragas, and you want to get to the lane a bit faster, you can go through the wall of your base, but only if you target on the far side of the wall.